Taxes on those who can't do math.

Many people in this country play the lottery, hoping beyond all hope that they will win a big prize. The lottery in this linked story pays out $365 million over time to a single winner. But your odds of winning are about 1 in 146 million. How bad are those odds? Well, let's take some examples having to do with your untimely demise as a US resident (stats found at http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm):

Your odds of dying unexpectedly due to an accident or injury are 1 in 2698, each year! They are 1 in 35 for your entire lifetime! But your chance of dying by accident this year is still more than 54,000 times more likely than your winning the lottery.

You are 16051 times more likely to commit suicide than to win the lottery (probably from wasting all your money on that lottery in the first place).

You are 24,525 times more likely to die in some kind of transport or vehicle accident than to win the lottery.

You are 8,943 times more likely to be killed by a violent assault than to win the lottery.

You are 1,748 times more likely to die by drowning than to win the lottery.

You are 1,602 times more likely to die in a fire than to win the lottery.

You are 180 times more likely to pass out and die from drinking too much alcohol than you are to win the lottery.

You are 33 times more likely to be killed by lightning than to win the lottery.

You are 20 times more likely to die from contact with hot tap water.

You are 16 times more likely to be killed in an earthquake than to win the lottery.

You are 5.07 times more likely to die of a poisonous spider bite than to win the lottery.

You are 2.54 times more likely to be killed by a fireworks discharge than to win the lottery.

So, with all these examples before us, why not spend that same money on an insurance policy? Seems like you have a much better chance on your family collecting on it if you die (or you collecting on your spouse's if he/she dies) than of winning the lottery.

Many lottery players routinely spend $50 a month on lottery tickets. If they started, at age 21, putting that $50 a month into an investment account (with an average long-term market return of 10%) rather than playing the lottery with it, and did so until they retired at age 65, they would have a tidy sum of almost $474,000 in that account. With that amount and that rate of return, they could withdraw $4,000 a month FOR EVER and never drain that account. That means their entire retirement and for the entire lives of their children and grandchildren, etc.

But, in the end, lottery is pushed by states because they make a nice percentage off the ticket sales. So the people who have a 100% chance of winning the lottery are the state governments, and the company putting on the lottery. Let's see... sounds like a tax on people who can't do math. Hmmm... 1 in 146 million chance, or 1 in 1 chance, which do I prefer more?